Veiled Intentions (10 page)

Or maybe not.

Maybe that's exactly what the nutcase wanted. Publicity. Recognition. A moment in the spotlight, even if that moment meant people dying.

All four of them headed toward the parking lot. Unlike the night of the mixer, Joe hadn't managed to get a decent parking spot. They were almost a full block away. In the dark.

“So did you learn anything new when you talked to Fiona?” Katelyn whispered, presumably so that the couple behind them wouldn't hear. “Like maybe how many eyelashes she had? You probably had a chance to count them when she was fluttering them at you.”

Joe geared up to give her a smart-ass comeback.
The glint of movement stopped him. The glint he caught out of the corner of his eye.

But it was too late.

The shot rang out before he could get Katelyn out of the way.

 

K
ATELYN FELT
the searing hot pain slice across her arm.

She ignored it and drew her weapon while she yelled for the couple to get down. They did, diving for cover behind a parked car. She latched on to Joe at the same moment he latched on to her, and they dragged each other to the ground.

It wasn't a second too soon.

Another bullet smashed into the building, into the exact spot where they'd been.

Katelyn couldn't take the time to berate herself, but she would sure as heck do it later. She should have paid more attention to that buzz in her head instead of dismissing it. And she darn sure shouldn't have been playing twenty questions with Joe about his encounter with Fiona Shipley.

Now that mistake might cost both of them their lives.

She checked the other couple. They were cowering, their hands protectively over their heads. All in all, it wasn't a bad position. The car would give them some measure of protection, but it wasn't the same for Joe and her. For all practical purposes, they were still out in the open.

“Let's move,” Joe ordered.

Katelyn didn't waste any time. She got to her feet, and they scrambled for the narrow alley between the two buildings. He maneuvered them to the far side of an overflowing Dumpster, but it wasn't an ideal position either since bullets could go through the metal.

“Rico here,” Joe said into his communicator. “We've got a shooter. Send backup to the outside perimeter of the area and await further orders.”

The outside perimeter so that it wouldn't blow their cover. Not that it wouldn't anyway. But Joe was obviously hoping to salvage this mission and keep them alive.

Katelyn pulled in a few steadying breaths and glanced down at her arm. She saw the gashed fabric, and the blood. Nothing serious, she decided, but she angled her body so that Joe wouldn't notice it. He didn't need that kind of distraction now.

Another shot.

It slammed into the exterior wall and tore off a chunk of brick, sending mortar and dust flying through the air. Two more shots quickly followed, both of them gashing into the Dumpster and the wall just above their heads.

The bullets came close.

Too close. And the thought of them coming any closer set Katelyn's heart pounding.

She leaned forward slightly, trying to see if she could pinpoint the origin of those bullets so she could get off a shot.

“Don't even think about it,” Joe snarled.

Katelyn started to argue, to remind him that she
could return fire as well as he could, but that probably wasn't a good option anyway. The gunman clearly had an advantage, and if she moved away from cover to get a better shot, it would also leave her vulnerable. They were already too exposed as it was.

Still, that didn't stop Joe.

He aimed. And she knew that he was about to do something she'd already dismissed.

But then the shots stopped.

The waiting began.

Katelyn counted off the seconds, the quiet seconds, until she got to sixty. Joe grabbed her shoulder when she started to move and he put her right back against the wall. “Not yet.” He took the end of his communicator and put it against his mouth. “Situation report.”

“Additional officers are on the way,” the backup officer responded.

Which meant the sniper was getting away.

Again!

Worse, it didn't exclude any of their suspects. Fiona, Merrick or Donovan could have left Perfect Match and sneaked into any of the multistory buildings across the street. For that matter, Kent could have done the same thing. He could have been lying in wait for them.

“Pick up Bruce Donovan, Dr. Kent, Addison Merrick and Fiona Shipley,” Joe snarled into his communicator. “Bring them in. I want them all interrogated. And by God, they'd better have answers.”

Katelyn shut the bathroom door and peeled off her top. Somehow, she'd managed to keep the streak of blood from Joe, but if she didn't get rid of the evidence, she wouldn't be able to keep it from him for long. Thankfully, he'd planted himself in the living room and was still immersed in the necessary calls and reports to headquarters.

“Judas,” she mumbled looking down at the shallow but angry gash that the sniper's bullet had left on her arm.

The bleeding had already stopped, and it wasn't especially painful—okay, it did hurt—but what hurt even more was the realization that it could have been worse. Much worse. The gunman could have killed Joe, the other couple and her. It was a miracle that all she had to show for the encounter was a minor two-inch abrasion, some dried blood and a pair of shredded panty hose that she'd damaged when she dove down on the sidewalk.

She stuffed the top in the cabinet beneath the sink
and while she was at it, she took off her panty hose to add them to the stash. She located a first aid kit in the medicine cabinet and got to work cleaning the wound. When she finished, Katelyn covered it with a bandage and slipped on a white cotton shirt, the only other long-sleeve garment her mother had included in the bag. Maybe the quick change in clothes wouldn't make Joe suspicious.

Or maybe it would.

He was standing right in front of her when she opened the door. He had his hands bracketed on each side of the frame, essentially blocking her path.

“Everything okay?” he asked. But it wasn't a simple question. There were some dangerous undercurrents in it.

“I'm fine.”

Those now infamous jaw muscles went to work against each other. “Take off your shirt, or I'll take it off for you.”

Oh.

“Does this mean you want to have sex?” Katelyn tried. But it was a lousy try. Anyone with half a brain would have known it wasn't sex on his mind. Not with that warlike expression.

He waited only a second or two before he reached out, grabbed the sides of her shirt and ripped it open. A few of the buttons merely gave way and slipped through the buttonholes. Others didn't. They landed with tiny bouncing pings on the tile floor.

His gaze raced over her body, and it obviously
wasn't her lacy bra or her breasts that captured his interest. His attention quickly landed on the bandage.

Katelyn braced herself for him to rip the shirt right off her. But he didn't. His touch gentled and Joe eased it off her shoulder to expose her arm.

“It's not bad,” she insisted.

He didn't take her word for it. Not surprising since he'd just caught her in a lie. With that same gentle touch, those same careful movements, he lifted the bandage.

And cursed.

The jaw muscles started again.

“How did you know I was hurt?” Katelyn asked. God, her voice actually cracked.

“There was blood on the sleeve of my jacket. It's not mine. I figured it had to be yours.”

She shrugged. “And here I thought I'd contained my bodily fluids.”

“This isn't funny!”

Because he looked ready to lose it, she ran her hand down the length of his arm. “It's nothing. I've gotten worse from shaving my legs.”

He pressed the bandage back in place, gently, and skimmed his fingertips from it, across the top of her left breast and then to her heart. “Six inches in this direction, and the bullet wouldn't have grazed you. It would have killed you.”

His gaze came to hers.

Unlike his touch, there was still no gentleness in those glacier-blue eyes, but Katelyn knew without a
doubt if gentleness was what she needed, he could have easily provided it.

And he did.

Without moving his hand from her heart, Joe pulled her to him. Where she felt incredibly safe and warm.

Katelyn went with it, against her better judgment. Full-blown sex would have been far less of an intimate risk than this. But her better judgment and her resolve went south. Unable to hold back a shudder of breath, she rested her head against his shoulder and took things from him that she hadn't known she needed.

They stood there for heaven knows how long. Minutes, maybe. Perhaps longer. The rhythm of her heart seemed to fall into cadence with the pulse that throbbed in his wrist. And the world seemed to just melt away.

Until the doorbell rang.

Joe immediately stepped back, drawing his gun, and their tender moment ended.

“Wait here,” he ordered.

“Right, and leave you without backup. Like I'm really going to do that.”

Knowing she couldn't do much to fix the shirt, she shucked it off and put on one that Joe had left in the bedroom. Katelyn had her weapon drawn before he even made it to the door.

“It's your brother,” Joe let her know.

Great. She didn't want to face Garrett now. “Don't say a word about the scratch,” she warned in a whisper.

But she soon learned it wasn't Garrett when Joe opened the door and let him in.

It was Brayden.

Even worse.

He was part bloodhound and all cop, and he could sniff out problems a mile away. She made sure Joe's shirt covered the bandage before she joined the two men in the living room.

“I came by to check on you,” Brayden greeted. He was dressed like a delivery man, but the disguise wasn't limited to just his clothes. He was carrying a white bag. “Dad sent some chili.”

“Thanks.” Katelyn took the bag, knowing she should dig in right away to prove all was right with the world, but her stomach wasn't quite ready for food. She set it on the table instead.

“You can do your initial reports on the computer,” Brayden instructed. “But I'll still need you to do a face-to-face at headquarters. No way around that. We'll send a cruiser for you tomorrow so it'll look as if you're being brought in for questioning. In fact, we'll bring in all the people who were at Perfect Match tonight.”

Brayden gave them both a considering glance and sat on the sofa. “Did either of you fire your weapons?”

“No,” she quickly volunteered.

Joe stared at her.

Brayden paused, as if waiting to see what had caused that stare. “Any reason to think your cover's
been compromised?” he asked, and Brayden directed that question at Joe.

Joe leaned against the narrow snack bar that divided the kitchen from the living room. “Hard to tell. Just about everyone in Perfect Match was talking about the shootings. And that other couple was walking right behind us. Maybe the sniper just wanted to make his or her presence known.”

Brayden didn't say anything for several seconds. “Well, we're rounding up Bruce Donovan and hopefully Fiona Shipley for an interrogation, so maybe we'll know something soon. Fiona checked herself into a residential mental health clinic about an hour ago. Lots of freedom for her to go from one place to the other, but it doesn't give us a lot of access to her unless she's willing to grant us that access. Oh, and we learned that Donovan owns several hunting rifles so I went ahead and requested a search warrant.”

“Good,” Joe said.

Katelyn muttered an agreement as well, even though Donovan probably wasn't stupid enough to leave murder weapons lying around for the cops to find. Still, it'd prevent him from getting a good night's sleep—which would apparently be her fate, as well. Joe probably wouldn't drop that
six inches over and you could have been killed
discussion.

“You intend to continue with the present mission plan?” Brayden asked Joe.

Joe stared at her again. Katelyn stared back and tried to put the words in his mouth. Or rather the word. And that word was
yes.

He didn't say yes.

But then he didn't say no, either.

“I'll have to get back to you on that,” Joe told her brother.

Brayden nodded. Made a sound of contemplation. Then looked at Joe. “Would you mind if I spoke to Katelyn in private?”

Another glare from Joe aimed in her direction, but this one had a
tell him the truth
warning in it. It was a warning she'd definitely ignore. Joe would thank her for it later, after they'd collared the sniper.

Her brother motioned for her to sit down the moment Joe left the room. “What's wrong?” Brayden asked.

She didn't sit, but put on her best butter-wouldn't-melt-in-my-mouth expression. “Why would you think anything's wrong?”

Brayden's eyebrow lifted.

So much for the nonmelting butter routine. That eyebrow was a very effective BS monitor. Still, it didn't stop her from going on the offensive. “What—being shot at isn't reason enough to make me cranky?”

His eyebrow stayed up. “You're wearing Sergeant Rico's shirt,” he pointed out.

“Oh, that.” Not that she'd thought for minute Brayden would miss something like that. However, since he'd broached the subject, Katelyn went with it. It might get him off the undercover assignment. “I'm not allowed to have a lover? Garrett is the wild child of the family, and you don't lecture him about it.”

“Garrett doesn't sleep with his boss.”

“My
temporary
boss,” Katelyn corrected.

Brayden shook his head. Nothing overt. Just a simple gesture. “You know something I don't? Joe Rico's a sergeant in Homicide. You're a detective in the same department.”

“For now, yes. But I figure he'll get promoted, and then he'll be moved.” If not, then it might come down to her asking for a transfer, a thought that had her feeling a little nauseous. She'd worked hard to get into Homicide, damn hard, and she wouldn't just give that up. Well, unless there was no other way. Then she'd consider it.

Heaven help her.

“And I haven't actually slept with him,” she said more to herself than her brother. “I've just been flirting with the idea.
Lightly
flirting with it. And even if something happened between us, it's not against the regs per se. It's just frowned upon because it could cause, well, morale problems.” She added an indignant huff just because she'd delivered Brayden's lecture for him. “Is this why you came over? To grill me about my love life?”

He caught her wrist and sat her on the coffee table in front of him. “Quit being so defensive. I came to see if you were all right.”

Katelyn leaned closer into his personal space. “I. Am.”

“Yes. I can see that.”

She didn't want to know if he was being sarcastic, mainly because she was certain that he was. After all,
his eyebrow was still cocked and locked, ready to fire, and she'd delivered her
I. Am.
comment through clenched teeth.

“I also wanted to talk to you about Sergeant Rico,” he calmly went on. “And about this mission.”

Since she was already on the defensive, she just stayed there. “Oh, no. Don't even think about pulling the plug on it.” Katelyn held up her thumb and index finger to indicate a miniscule space. “We're this close to getting the sniper, Brayden.”

“I don't doubt it.” And there wasn't anything defensive-sounding about that. He eased down her hand. “Sergeant Rico and you make a good team.”

That improved her posture. But she wouldn't let a compliment, if that's indeed what it was, blindside her. “What the heck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you each have talents that balance the other's.” He leaned back against the sofa and tucked his hands behind his head. “For Rico, procedure is rote, so deeply engrained he doesn't have to think about it. The vast majority of the time, following procedure's the right thing to do. So that practically ensures a successful mission. You, on the other hand, think outside the box, and that gives you the edge when you're in an evade and escape mode.”

“Thanks. I think.” Suspicious, she squinted one eye. “Is this some kind of law enforcement version of a hunters versus gatherers theory?”

He smiled. “Well, sort of.” His mouth quivered as if he might smile, but then he lowered his hands and
continued. “Rico's never missed a shot during fire-arms qualification.”

Another posture improving remark.
“Never?”

“Never.”

“Sheez.” She let that sink in. “Even Robocop misses every now and then.”

“Rico's also never blown a case. He's batting a thousand in that department.”

She frowned, realizing all the blindsiding was probably leading somewhere after all. “And your point would be?”

“No point. You're smart, and that means you know if it comes down to a tight situation, then Rico can handle it. No matter how good of a shot you are—and you're good—he's better.”

“And he'll be even better if I'm backing him up,” she promptly added.

“Absolutely.” He stood, kissed her cheek and headed for the door. “Be careful, okay?”

Katelyn nodded, and even though she wasn't pleased with the minilecture, she went to him and returned the kiss.

She locked the door after she let him out. “One down, one to go,” she grumbled. She'd probably convinced Brayden to keep this case alive, but now she had to do the same with Joe.

“Want some chili?” she called out.

She took the two plastic containers from the bag. They were still warm so she grabbed a couple of spoons and prepared herself for a feast—which she really didn't want yet—but that was beside the point.
Wolfing down some chili might go a long way toward proving to Joe that she was fit for duty.

He came out of the bedroom and started that staring thing again, so Katelyn shoved both the container of chili and a spoon into his hands. “Eat,” she ordered.

She did. Katelyn sat back on the coffee table and dug in. “Practically orgasmic, huh?” she asked after he'd had his first taste.

“Close.” Joe sampled another heaping spoonful. “Speaking of orgasmic, you'd rather let your brother think you have the hots for me than just tell him you're hurt?”